Bangladesh Prime Minister on the run, army forms government

Photo: Office of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh/Agence France-Presse Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina addresses the media on July 25, 2024.

Shafiqul Alam – Agence France-Presse in Dhaka

Published at 6:48 Updated at 7:39

• Asia

• < li class="bookmark">

Bangladesh's prime minister ousted, her palace stormed: The army chief announced Monday that he was forming a caretaker government, a month after anti-government protests began.

“The country has suffered a lot, the economy has been hit, many people have been killed. It is time to end the violence,” General Waker-Uz-Zaman said, announcing the resignation of 76-year-old leader Sheikh Hasina in an address to the nation broadcast on Bangladeshi state television.

“If the situation improves, there is no need to resort to a state of emergency,” he added, promising that those responsible for the killings committed during the protests would be brought to justice.

At least 300 people have been killed since the start of protests in July, according to an AFP report based on data from police, officials and hospital sources .

On Monday, Sheikh Hasina fled the capital Dhaka by helicopter, before thousands of demonstrators stormed her palace, a source told AFP close to the leader.

Eldest daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh which gained independence from Pakistan in 1971, Sheikh Hasina came to power in 2009 , after a first term between 1996 and 2001.

Footage broadcast by Bangladesh’s Channel 24 showed a crowd of protesters running into Hasina’s palace compound.

Shortly before her residence was stormed, her son, Sajeeb Wazed, had urged security forces to prevent any takeover. “Your duty is to ensure the safety of our people and our country and uphold the Constitution,” he wrote on Facebook.

200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000

Hasina’s resignation announcement comes as hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters took to the streets of the capital on Monday, a day after a bloody day in which clashes left at least 94 people dead across the country.

According to witnesses, large crowds are marching through the streets of Dhaka and have broken down roadblocks. The Business Standard newspaper estimates that some 400,000 protesters are demonstrating on Monday, a number that AFP has not been able to verify.

“Battlefield”

On Sunday, new clashes between opponents of Ms Hasina, security forces and supporters of the ruling party left at least 94 dead across the country.

It is the heaviest toll in a single day since the start of anti-government demonstrations a month ago in this Muslim country of 170 million people, where students are protesting, against a backdrop of high unemployment among graduates, the favours granted to those close to the government to become civil servants.

All of Dhaka was transformed into “a battlefield” and a crowd of several thousand demonstrators set fire to cars and motorbikes near a hospital, according to another police source.

In response, the government closed schools and universities and deployed the army.

The country has many unemployed graduates, and students are demanding the abolition of a system of positive discrimination that reserves a quota of public sector jobs for the families of independence veterans.

Partially abolished in 2018, this system was restored in June by the courts, igniting the powder keg, before a new reversal at the end of July by the Supreme Court.

The social crisis has turned into a political crisis since July 16, when the repression caused its first deaths, the demonstrators then demanding the resignation of Mrs. Hasina.

“It’s not just about job quotas anymore,” Sakhawat, a young protester we met in Dhaka, told AFP. “We want future generations to be able to live freely,” she said.

Hasina’s government has been accused by human rights groups of using state institutions to consolidate its grip on power and stamp out dissent, including through extrajudicial killings of opposition activists.